Although tobacco products have been produced and sold as pre-manufactured products (such as pre-made cigarettes, offered in cartons) by commercial enterprises for more than 100 years, there remains a demand in the art for hand made or custom made tobacco and related products.
For example, many smokers or consumers of smokeable products believe that “roll-your-own” tobacco or smoking products are not as harmful to human health as commercially sold smoking products. This is, in part, because a person hand rolling a smokeable product, such as a cigarette, can control the specific content of the product and therefore potentially eliminate, or at least limit, undesirable chemicals in the custom “rolling” process.
Moreover, because of the taxation of pre-manufactured cigarettes (on state and federal levels, as well as by countries other than the United States), there is oftentimes an incentive to custom or hand roll smokeable products to avoid taxation and thereby reduce the cost of tobacco or other smokeable products to the consumer.
In addition to the above reasons, there is also sometimes a social factor which lends to the desirability of hand or custom rolling smokeable products. For example, “hookah” smoking has become popular in recent years with restaurants sometimes including hookah bar or smoking areas. Entire lounges devoted to hookah smoking have also emerged on the social scene. Similar to this phenomenon, the custom or hand rolling of tobacco or other smokeable products can and often does serve or function as a desirable component of a social gathering, such as a private party at a household.
Still furthermore, it may be desirable to add or substitute smokeable substances, in custom rolled smoking products, to obtain custom, smokeable “cigarettes” which contain smokable matter not otherwise readily available in pre-manufactured cigarette products. For example, custom rolling of cigarette type products which contain flavored tobacco(s), cloves, mixtures of tobaccos, or even cannabis (where legal, or for legal, medical purposes) is possible.
Even though the hand or custom “cigarette” rolling arts have included numerous innovations over the years related to grinders and rolling papers and the like, there remain certain desires for improvements in hand rolling operations, processes, and/or products, which often involve grinders for the grinding of tobacco (or other smokeable products).
In view of the above-enumerated drawbacks and/or needs or desires for improvements in the smokeable products arts, it is a purpose of the herein described invention to address one or more of such drawbacks and/or desires as well as, or in the alternative, other needs which will become more apparent to the skilled artisan once given the present disclosure.